Monday, March 2, 2009

I Prefer to Think of This as an Ice Cream Challenge! :D

Here we are…another month down…and another challenge done. The February 2009 challenge is hosted by Wendy of WMPE's blog and Dharm of Dad ~ Baker & Chef.
We have chosen a Chocolate Valentino cake by Chef Wan; a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Dharm and a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Wendy as the challenge.

It’s interesting to note that I have made a Danish braid, a French yule log, and some cheesecake pops. I have to admit that I was feeling pretty prideful as these recipes and challenges were not easy and yet I had succeeded. Apparently it was time to be knocked down … dragged through the mud….and then tossed over the edge of the cliff in order for me to come back down to earth. Of course my failure would have to be the recipe that has only 3 ingredients. Chocolate, butter and eggs….a.k.a. flourless chocolate cake. What could be easier or better? We were also allowed to make something to accompany the cake and of course I chose ice cream. Can you guess what flavor I made? The first five don’t count. If you guessed cinnamon ice cream…then you were right. I just can’t give it up….plus it gave my dessert a whole Mexican chocolate vibe. Nice huh? I made the ice cream first and it was amazing…maybe it was because I was up at midnight making it….I don’t know, but it was spot on! (I even went crazy and used some cinnamon vanilla coffee mate in the ice cream and it totally worked.) I decided to make the cake the next day when I would not be distracted by Mr. Sandman and his sleeping powder.


So the next morning I got up and melted my chocolate…


Then I beat my whites…….


Then I combined the two with the yolks and stuck it in the oven and set the timer.


When I took it out of the oven I had a cake that was cooked on the outside and totally not cooked on the inside. I’m talking liquid goop. It was horrible. I mean HORRIBLE. It only cooked enough at one edge to get a tiny heart cut out of it. The rest went into the trash. I was at least grateful I got the little bit out so that I could enjoy it. Then I tasted it. I think I’m the only person in the forum who hated it. It was terrible. I’m not sure what I did wrong. I had my oven calibrated recently so I can’t blame the oven. DANGIT! I can only say one more thing ~From this point forward I vow to respect all recipes no matter their content or their technique so as to gain it’s respect in return.

I LOVE Daring Bakers

- Amber

3 comments:

Dharm said...

Sorry to hear your cake didnt turn out well... But I'm glad your ice cream did!! Thanks for joining us on this one!

Kristine said...

I disliked the Valentino as well. Mine turned out fine. I cut out six hearts or my photo and then chopped them up into crumbs and used them a few weeks later in vanilla ice cream. That was divine.

There are many, better more interesting flourless chocolate cakes out there. Thanks for your honest post. Mine will be up later today. Kristine

Anonymous said...

Glad to hear you loved the ice cream - I thought the cake was the BEST chocolate dessert I have ever tasted. Sorry that it was a huge dissapointment to you - but that is the point of DBers to learn new techniques and skills which you seem to have done. You learn more from your errors than you susccesses. Very honest comments I like that a lot.